


She'll Fly True

by ashen_key



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fic, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-20
Updated: 2011-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:56:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashen_key/pseuds/ashen_key
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gaila Iley is fifteen, and a slave, but she is an engineer before all of that and her ship is in trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She'll Fly True

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the **where_no_woman** at lj prompt: _She’s tore up plenty, but she’ll fly true._

The clans of the Orions share but three things: space, species, and business acumen. Everything else is up for negotiation. Sometimes, this negotiation is with words, sex, marriage, or money. Sometimes, it is with violence, and it is the threat of this that has sent the _Dar-Paresh_ to the edge of Triad Twenty-Four.

Violence they seek, and violence they find confirmation of; when the first blast hits, Gaila careens into the far wall. For a moment she is stunned, sprawled out over the curved floor with Tarka's body pinning her legs. Then there is another blast, and another, and that third shakes the scout vessel hard enough that she can hear the joints groan. Gaila Iley, Gaila the Gully, the G’lly Rat, is fifteen, and a slave, but she is an engineer before all of that, _and this is her fucking ship!_

So Gaila shoves her former crewmate off her, pulls herself to her feet, grabs her toolset, and runs.

Two separate propulsion components, each with four different units, all spinning around the centre spine, and she’s reached the engine room at the very end of that spine. One system is down and out, maybe salvageable, maybe not, but the ship can run on just one, and that’s starting to falter.

Oh, no.

Not her ship.

Gaila starts to work, pulling wires here and connecting them there, all the fancy names her owner beat into her vanishing because she doesn’t even need to think about it. She knows what to do. She cuts off the power to the down system, diverting all to the propulsion system so they can warp-

Shit, not quite enough.

“ENGINES?” The sound crackles with the broken speakers.

“SHE’LL FLY!” she hollers back. “TURN THE SHIELDS OFF, WE NEED THE POWER.”

The pause seems to be a year, an eternity, before she hears, “DONE!” It takes two seconds, and her scream of “NOW!” barely seems out of her mouth before the engines whirl and roar and warp them away.

Gasping, Gaila slowly lets herself fall to the floor. Eyes still closed, she reaches out and strokes the wall next to her. “That’s my girl,” she whispers to the ship, “that’s my girl.”


End file.
